For better or worse, the year 2020 is behind us. For me personally, I am looking ahead to making 2021 as good as it can be. Now obviously there will be some roadblocks to achieving full potential, notably related to the pandemic. However, I think there’s no reason that we can try to find goodwill where we can, filling each other’s life with some meaning when so much is going wrong. It’s been a fraught time for everyone and I sympathize with those who suffered major losses of any kind last year. Hopefully, this year will reward you with something better.
Though, in one of the strangest twists that the year could’ve ended on, New Year’s Eve ended with one last death. Rapper MF Doom (short for Metal Face of Doom) passed away at the age of 49. While the cause wasn’t given, he actually had passed on Halloween and it’s amazing that his family got time to grieve privately. It’s a tragic story for many reasons, chief among them is that it takes away one of the singular voices of rap music. In a genre that thrives on personality, nobody had the knack quite like MF Doom.
I’m sure many will turn to his big hits like “Operation Doomsday” as their source of reverence. I frankly need to hear more of his work. However, what I will always love about him was his nerdy eccentricity. He was legitimately talented, but he also had this capability to adapt his style to so many strange concept albums. Among the more interesting of them was “Take Me to Your Leader” where he appeared as King Geedorah in an experimental rap album that compared Godzilla to the Black struggle. As an experience album, it’s kind of brilliant and perfectly aligns with his strange worldview.
However, the one album I immediately thought of when MF Doom died (and I’m sure that I’ll get flagged for this) was “The Mouse and the Mask.” I don’t know if anyone would call this his best album, but it came out in 2005 when a spry 16-year-old me was the right age for [adult swim]. I often would chase this experience with a little South Park on Comedy Central before popping over for the late-night line-up. Now I’ll confess that I was never obsessive about it, but there was something to new and deranged programming coming on at midnight that made you feel special.
You couldn’t believe that animation got away with such bizarre stuff. I remember loving Robot Chicken, if just for how very few jokes outstayed their welcome. All of my friends knew the theme song when it’d come on. There was also Aqua Teen Hunger Force, which was on the verge of releasing a movie theatrically after airing it on Cartoon Network… in a little box in the corner of the screen on April 1. They were the perfect piece of antagonism that makes me surprised that not only have they thrived, but have only grown into something more mainstream since those early years.
Because seriously, it was like entering another world. The TV was talking to you during the commercial breaks. Everything felt like it was testing your sanity. Nothing lasted longer than it needed to with the average show clocking in at under 10 minutes. It was the most tolerable length for the juvenile humor, where Aqua Teen Hunger Force would attempt to break the record for most times saying “Dick” in an episode. I like to think that while I don’t have deep affection and knowledge about any of these shows, they secretly broke my brain and I’m still trying to fix it.
Though it makes sense that MF Doom would want to team up with them. More specifically, he was partnering with Danger Mouse on the album “The Mouse and the Mask.” Now Danger Mouse was a fascinating producer, who managed to remix Jay-Z with The Beatles, or create a soundtrack album for a movie that never existed. He was pushing boundaries when he wasn’t doing basic music with Cee-Loo in Gnarls Barkley. I’m curious to better explore his career one day but for now, it should show you how wild it is that these three minds melded.
Together, MF Doom and Danger Mouse created Danger Doom: a supergroup whose collaborators were predominantly made up of audio clips from [adult swim] episodes. This was just as hallucinatory as anything the network had or would pull, and it’s somehow become a small footnote. Danger Doom only ever released another album, which was a remix of what came before. Still, MF Doom spoke highly about wanting to make another album but where he rapped from the characters’ perspectives in their voices. There was talk throughout the years, but alas nothing really came to be.
From here, it is all dependent on what you actually expect an MF Doom/Danger Mouse/[adult swim] collaboration to look like. If you’re a normal person, what follows is at best a weird album that has very little staying power. If you’re like me, a teenager who still found offensive nonsense funny, then there’s a good chance that this was avant-garde, where lowbrow art had their own candidate for Mona Lisa. There’s definitely a lot of effort put into it, and what’s amazing is how it becomes its own ecosystem. Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Master Shake is constantly barging in throughout the album, desperate to collaborate. The twist is obvious: he doesn’t get a chance… though his cohort Meatwad ends the album.
That’s what may be the best part of the album. It’s such an affectionate experience, where MF Doom is essentially creating deeper psychology of characters. Danger Mouse provides a rather solid music landscape that finds characters barging in, constantly adding their two cents. Starting with “El Chupa Nibre” where a character calls the audience stupid, the album goes through a familiar hazy vibe that is only given levity by the fact that MF Doom is capable of mixing in so many TV references and psychosis that it makes everyone on their couch at 12:15 A.M. feel cool. When they hear Master Shake pop up, there is something fascinating about this world.
What is going on?
I’m most personally impressed with “Basket Case,” which blurs the line best between cartoon and reality as MF Doom has to question his own sanity as samples sound like they’re moments away from throwing him in an asylum. It’s an enthusiastic track that compels, finding a Harvey Birdman sample turning into something more dramatic. Maybe that’s the stroke of genius in all of this. MF Doom IS committed to being a cartoon character. He isn’t afraid to dive into this world and play with the imagery. He clearly has a lot of stuff on his DVR, and you kind of want to watch all of it with him providing a running commentary.
As readers can guess, there isn’t much to say about the album beyond this. While there’s a laundry list of great rhymes for MF Doom to pull from, there isn’t anything more to dissect. “The Mouse and the Mask” is a 40-minute joke about watching TV late at night and getting lost in this obsession. MF Doom was always about that. “Take Me to Your Leader” is more successful at conveying a bigger theme. This is just creating a concept album for a network dedicated to not caring about consistency.
Don’t get me wrong. That is a brilliant achievement. I couldn’t imagine every niche network being able to pull characters together and make an album like this. HBO definitely couldn’t do it for more than one show at a time (A Leftovers Christmas, maybe?). That only reflects how special [adult swim] always was. You don’t have to love them, but every now and then they’ll break the space-time continuum in such a way that you’re just left in awe. This is where bold comedy goes, where it’s allowed to be abstract and/or depressing. Somehow it was a bonding point among my friends, to know that we were all aware that Wonder Showzen was a real thing that existed. It was amazing that we knew of this mystical world that only existed after dark.
Outside of Rick and Morty, I can’t say that I’ve spent much time on the channel in recent years. However, I do love that it still exists and that there are 16-year-olds out there discovering it every day, finding their own weird nonsense to bond over. While “The Mouse and the Mask” features A LOT of humor that you couldn’t do today (specifically regarding neurodivergence), it definitely captures a moment so perfectly, of artists who wanted to push the boundaries of reason in different ways and created something arguably profound.
I’m confident that [adult swim] has a lot more where this came from. However, the fact a Top 40 producer and an indie rapper sensation could make this album exist is a miracle. This technically should not, and I’m thankful that it does. The world is always a more interesting place when artists get to push their boundaries and make art that challenges their own perspective. Sometimes it’s crass and off-putting, but they’re always interesting on some level. You can’t deny that it took some creativity to produce it, and I’m sure that Danger Doom were sitting in the studio laughing through all of the different edits.
I look forward to reading more reverent tributes to MF Doom because he definitely deserved it. Also, I need to discover more of his work in the years to come. What little I’ve heard from him has been enjoyable and his lyrical flow has something unique going on. It’s a shame that he’s gone now, but I am thankful that he had the passion to make art that challenged our understanding of the world. Nowhere does that feel truer than here, where everything feels go for broke and it doesn’t matter that there are tracks called “Vats of Urine” and “Space Ho’s.” This is all one elaborate joke, and part of the fun is just getting away with it.
Comments
Post a Comment